"A Red Record": Ida B. Wells Fights Back
- Rosie Jayde Uyola
- Jan 26
- 4 min read
Target: I can explain how Ida B. Wells fought against racial violence by comparing her written research to an anti-lynching political cartoon.
Key Vocabulary
Lynching: The murder of a person by a mob, often by hanging, without a legal trial. This was used to terrorize African Americans in the South.
Ida B. Wells: An African American journalist who researched and wrote pamphlets (like A Red Record) exposing the truth about lynching.
Jim Crow Laws: Laws in the South that enforced racial segregation and took away rights from Black citizens.
The "Thread-Bare Lie": Ida B. Wells' term for the false accusation that Black men were lynched for assaulting women, when they were actually lynched for being successful or competing with whites.
Part 1: Do Now (5 minutes)
Directions: Read the prompt below and write a 5-8 sentence response.
Prompt: Imagine a newspaper in your town only printed lies about you and your friends, saying you were dangerous criminals. Because of these lies, people in the town started treating you badly, but you weren't allowed to write in the newspaper to defend yourself. How would you get the truth out? What would you do to prove to everyone that the newspaper was lying? |
Sentence Starter: If a newspaper was spreading lies about me, I would try to get the truth out by... To prove they were lying, I would...
Part 2: Analyzing the Sources
Directions: Analyze the two documents below and then answer the questions that follow.
Source 1: Ida B. Wells, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases" (1892)
Context: After three of her friends were lynched in Memphis for owning a successful grocery store, Ida B. Wells began investigating lynchings. She published her findings to prove that the "reasons" given for these murders were lies.
Original Text | Simplified Text |
"Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. The awful death-roll that Judge Lynch is calling every week is appalling, not only because of the lives it takes... but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it places against the good name of a weak race. The Negro was first charged with attempting to rule white people, and hundreds were murdered on that pretended supposition. He is now charged with assaulting white women. This charge, as false as it is foul, robs us of the sympathy of the world and is blasting the race's good name." | "Someone needs to show that African Americans are the victims, not the criminals, and it seems like I have to be the one to do it. The list of people murdered by lynch mobs every week is horrific... First, Black men were killed because white people said they were trying to 'rule' over whites. Now, they are accused of assaulting white women. This charge is a dirty lie. It makes the world stop caring about us and destroys our reputation." |
Source 2: Political Cartoon - "The Negro's Holiday" (c. 1900)
Context: This cartoon illustrates the violence Ida B. Wells was fighting against. It shows a lynching as a public spectacle.
Description: The image shows a crowd of white men looking at a lynched figure hanging from a tree. The title "The Negro's Holiday" is sarcastic, meant to show the horror that African Americans faced while white mobs treated the murder like a celebration or a party.
Analysis Questions
Directions: Answer the writing questions and the two Multiple Choice questions.
1. According to Source 1, what does Ida B. Wells say is the "new" excuse white mobs are using to justify lynching?
Sentence Starter: According to the text, the new excuse is that Black men are... Ida B. Wells calls this excuse "false" and "foul" because...
2. Look at Source 2. How does the cartoonist’s use of the title "The Negro's Holiday" highlight the cruelty of lynching?
Sentence Starter: The title is cruel because a "holiday" is usually happy, but in this image... This shows that for the white mob, the violence was...
Regents-Style Multiple Choice
3. Based on these documents, which action did Ida B. Wells take to fight against the injustice of lynching?
(1) She led a violent rebellion to overthrow the government
(2) She used journalism and statistics to expose the truth behind the murders
(3) She successfully passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote
(4) She organized a boycott of the Montgomery bus system
4. The actions of the mobs described in Source 1 and shown in Source 2 were most often motivated by a desire to:
(1) Enforce the provisions of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
(2) Maintain white supremacy and racial segregation in the South
(3) Protect African Americans from the Ku Klux Klan
(4) Support the goals of the Freedmen’s Bureau
Part 3: Exit Ticket (5 minutes)
Directions: Answer the following prompt in a complete paragraph (5-8 sentences).
Prompt: Using evidence from both sources, explain how Ida B. Wells tried to solve the problem of lynching. Why did she believe it was so important to "tell the world the facts" (Source 1)? |
Sentence Starter: Ida B. Wells fought against lynching by writing pamphlets like "Southern Horrors" (Source 1) to prove that... She believed it was important to tell the truth because the white mobs were using lies to... Source 2 shows the horror she was fighting against, where lynching was treated like... By exposing these facts, she hoped to...
